Say you're in the R&D labs at Sony Ericsson and you want your latest handset to stick out amid an ocean of fierce Darwinian competition. You have three possible routes:

Offers a capable "everything but the kitchen sink" feature list. Photo and video tweaking toys a-plenty. PictBridge compatible. Automatically resizes huge hi-res photos before sending as MMS. Supports video calling (with compatible phones)

Dull appearance more boring than watching C-Span with the sound off. Virtually flat keypad makes blind texting a nightmare. 8-MP images + 160 MB of memory = non-negotiable memory-stick purchase. Large, side-staged charging port is awkward. 16x digital ...

The recipe for cooking up a sweet multimedia phone? Take one part phone, mix two parts MP3 player, throw in some cool backlit buttons to impress the kids. Blend until creamy.

Standard headphone jack FTW. Slick animated menus and overall presentation. Sports a mini-kickstand for propping the phone up to watch video. Brilliant and colorful 2.6-inch 320x240 display. Decent audio clarity during headphone use. Decent data ...

Low volume for music and calls. Music or voice, it doesn't matter -- the speakerphone just sucks. E-mail client is both chintzy and web-based. Mediocre call quality. Buttons sit in recessions so deep, they need a government bailout

Apple outsmarted the mobile world by releasing the touch-controlled iPhone in June 2007. In July the next year, it rocketed to faster network speeds with the iPhone 3G while creating a massive ecosystem of apps. Now, on June 19, Apple will reassert ...

Faster. More storage. Better camera, with video recording capability. Search encompasses more data, not just one app at a time. Voice navigation. Feature-rich iPhone 3.0 software is free to current iPhone users

Multitasking still limited. No tethering or MMS support yet for AT& ; T users. Recent iPhone 3G customers must pay a fortune to upgrade

Samsung's Alias 2 is aptly named; it leads a double life. On one hand, it's slick and cool, with a vibrant swivel screen and an E Ink keyboard that would make even a Kindle user slightly jealous.

E Ink keyboard morphs button layouts when switching from phone to messaging device. Voice quality is high. Battery life is nearly six hours. Reasonably priced

The Dear Diary feel of the interface is at odds with anyone over 13. My Room Menu theme is embarrassing. Lack of dedicated buttons leave you hunting and pecking for even the most common tasks

The newest device to flaunt Google's Android operating system is the Ion, a lightly customized version of the HTC Magic. Loaded with a newer version of the seminal OS, the phone is faster, sleeker and smarter than the previous Android model, the G1. ...

, a phone that came straight outta Finland unlocked, with a powerful array of business and multimedia features. It was balanced, it was beautiful and it worked perfectly. We loved it so much, the handset won our Best of Test award for mobile phones in ...

Fantastic industrial design. Hashing out e-mails (or tweets) on smartly appointed QWERTY is a typo-free affair. Gorgeous screen completely readable in direct sunshine. Battery life holds up to four days of calls, e-mails and web surfing. One hundred ...

Seriously, AT& ; T, did you have to drop the toggle button? Still no N-Gage gaming platform available. 3.2 MP pics skew a touch towards the noisy end of the spectrum

You can get away with a lot if you're beautiful. Such is the case with the new Porsche Design P'9522 phone. In some ways, it's a wonderful and capable cellphone, but in most others, it's dumber than the gorgeous block of aluminum it was machined from.

Gorgeous. Touchscreen interface is easy to understand, if limited and frustrating. Pre-loaded ringtones include the roaring engines of the 911 GT3 and Turbo. 5-megapixel camera has auto-focus and captures clean, vivid images. LED flash doubles as a ...

Fingerprint scanner is also very POS: Who thought it would be a good idea to use fingerprints to access a device you're likely holding in one hand while juggling multiple other tasks? Preloaded ringtones include bad German techno. Touchscreen is ...

Comedian Louis C.K. was spot on when he mused how everything is so amazing and nobody is happy. Take a moment to consider the i8510, one of Samsung's latest 8-megapixel smartphones.

Beaucoup codecs, including - wait for it - DivX! 2.8-inch screen excellent for playback. Intuitive photo/video editing suite. Equally-intuitive navigation. Automatic lens cover. microSD slot good for 16GB (enough for aspiring Scorseses to go epic). ...

Side-mounted headphone jack makes phone harder to pocket. Optical control pad is a tad sensitive (between us and you - we don't want to hurt its feelings). Most bogus: Metal shell retains enough scratches to fill a DJ Shadow album. A little on the ...

You like the nightlife? You like to boogie? So does Samsung's new Memoir camera phone. If you have trouble remembering your nocturnal escapades, fear not: This phone will log all your activities in 8-megapixel stills and MPEG video. But stick to the ...

Far ahead of most phones with 8-megapixel shots. Cool touchscreen and accelerometer helps you shoot or view pictures. Compact, pocket-friendly shape, even for hipsters in painted-on jeans

Vampiric light sensitivity makes for washed-out shots. Slow to focus, shoot and recover. E-mail functions are even slower. The screen is hard to see in sunlight. Lens cover doesn't close all the time, so the lens can get dusty

Apple got a lot of things right with the iPhone 3G-but not battery life. Instead of affixing some awkward dongle, the designers at Incase suggest slipping your baby into the Power Slider. It not only doubles your battery life, it offers ample ...